The white water rafting trip at Ohiopyle State Park in Pennsylvania was fantastic! The Topping Clan was treated to the excitement of some pretty good rafting, the closeness of kin, and absolutely beautiful weather. Ohiopyle is about a 6 hour trip from Rochester and is located about ten miles north of the West Virginia-Pennsylvania border, and was well worth the trip. Here are some photos of us all running the rapids at Dimple Rock on our rafting trip with Laurel Highlands River Tours.

From left to right; Lance, Ian, Ryan, and Suzanne.

Johanna, Karen, Kyle, Kiera, and Gary.

Lance and Ryan. Ian and Suzanne have “hit the deck.”

Cap’n Gary and crew in heavy whitewater, fighting to stay in the raft.

The kids and I (and of course Courage the dog) will be heading north this weekend to Parry Sound to attend to some unfinished business. We will be catching up on water testing this trip, and plan on performing tests this coming weekend and again early in the week after next just after the Canadian long-weekend holiday. The exact name of the holiday (officially known as “The Canadian Civic Holiday”) varies from family to family, with such tags as “The Two-Four Weekend” (for 24 beers in a case) and the “Goddamn Long Weekend” common in the vernacular.

Suzanne, my mother, my sister, and my nephew Elijah will joining us at the cottage mid-week. Our mission is to continue on with the water testing that was so important to our father, and to spread some of his ashes in the place he loved. We plan on scattering some of his cremains in three Georgian Bay places revered by Pop; so called Mineral Island, a small uninhabited island near Sans Souci which Pop named for its wide array of diverse rock and mineral deposits; the South Channel in front of our cottage; and in the special gravesite Pop made for his faithful and beloved dog Shadrach, which Pop mourned over for quite some time after he died. We will then raise the flags at our cottage back to full mast.

Here are some photos from Kiera’s “I’m Eighteen and Spreading My Wings” birthday flight, taken with Kiera’s digital camera.

Here are Kiera and her friend Erika in front of the float plane just after enjoying the flight.

This is a photo of the Parry Sound inner harbor at the mouth of the Sequin River. You can see the “Big Sound” in the background behind the large dark-roofed building in the upper left side of the picture, which is the Charles W. Stockey Centre for the Performing Arts and home to the Bobby Orr Hall of Fame.

Here is a shot of Craganmor Point on McLaren Island in the South Channel near Seven Mile Narrows. Our cottage can be seen in the lower center of the photo, just above a small island in the channel. You can clearly see the bright blue tarp covering my work boat, which is in storage on a marine railway build by Brent Warga on our beach.

Here are photos of the bagpipers outside Trinity Church in Canaseraga playing for Pop’s funeral, courtesy of Peggy Ann Glaister. Pop always liked the sound of the pipes and they were the perfect punctuation to a celebration of his life.

The Topping cousins are heading out of town for a three day white-water rafting trip in Ohiopyle State Park in Pennsylvania, about an hour southeast of Pittsburgh. Going on the adventure are my wife Suzanne, daughter Kiera, and son Ian; my sister Johanna and her son Elijah; cousin Gary from Maryland, his wife Eileen, and sons Kyle and Ryan; and my other cousin Karen from Connecticut (Gary’s sister), her husband Alan, and their daughter Leah.

The park’s website describes it as follows:

“A crown jewel of the Pennsylvania park system, Ohiopyle is situated where the slopes of Laurel Ridge clash with the Youghiogheny River. This clash has resulted in waterfalls, whitewater rapids, scenic overlooks, rock outcroppings, and a steep mountainous landscape. Combine that with a maturing forest and wildlife, and you’ve got a paradise for outdoor enthusiasts of all kinds, for all seasons.” More information can be found on the website by clicking on this link Ohiopyle State Park.

Below is a panaoramic photo of the beautiful Thirty Thousand Island area in the heart of Georgian Bay on Lake Huron in Ontario, Canada. The shot was taken by my daughter Kiera while on her birthday float plane ride.

As a follow-on to the announcement of my mother assuming the role of Warden at Trinity Church in Canaseraga, here is a photo of Trinity taken by Peggy Ann Glaister on the morning of of Pop’s funeral. I had looked online for pictures to include with my earlier posts about Trinity, but could find none. Thank you Peggy for sharing them with us.

Trinity Episcopal Church was organized July 22, 1857. The corner-stone of the church building was placed Sept. 26, 1864, and the edifice, built at a cost of $8,000, was dedicated Dec. 14, 1865. A rectory was built later at a cost of $1,500.

It’s time to tell the story of the Saint Andrew’s cross.

Saint Andrew is the Patron Saint of Scotland, and St. Andrew’s Day is celebrated by Scots around the world on the 30th November. The flag of Scotland is the Cross of St. Andrew, and this is widely displayed as a symbol of national identity. The “Order of Saint Andrew” or the “Most Ancient Order of the Thistle” is an order of Knighthood which is restricted to the King or Queen and sixteen others. It was established by James VII of Scotland in 1687.

Very little is really known about St. Andrew himself. He was thought to have been a fisherman in Galilee, along with his elder brother Simon Peter (Saint Peter), and both of them became apostles of Jesus Christ. St. Andrew is said to have been responsible for spreading the tenets of the Christian religion though Asia Minor and Greece. Tradition suggests that St. Andrew was put to death by the Romans in Patras, Southern Greece by being crucified cross in the shape of an ‘X’. The diagonal shape of this cross is said to be the basis for the Cross of St. Andrew which appears on the Scottish Flag.

Many years ago my mom tipped me off that my father had admired a cross and chain he had seen in the bookstore of Diocesan House on East Avenue in Rochester, the headquarters of the Rochester Episcopal Diocese and not far from our present home on Ericsson Street. Pop visited the bookstore when he was serving on the Standing Committee (sort of like the Board of Directors for the Diocese) under the leadership of The Rt. Rev. Robert R. Spears, Jr. in the 1970s. I acted on my mother’s tip and purchased the cross, which was in the style of Saint Andrew’s, and I gave the silver cross and chain to my father as a Christmas gift. Pop was thrilled, and started wearing the cross full-time immediately. This all happened over 25 years ago, and my father had rarely if ever removed the cross since then. In fact you can see the cross in the photo below, which was the one used for Pop’s obituary and was taken a few years ago.

After Pop was rushed via ambulance to the emergency room at St. James Mercy Hospital in Hornell and was there on a BiPAP ventilator, the attending nurse, who was merely following hospital protocol, started the motions to remove the cross from his neck. However, Pop had other ideas and steadfastly refused to surrender it, shaking his head vehemently from side-to-side indicating that he wasn’t going to give it up without a fight. The nurse acquiesced, as many other nurses did that followed her during the period of his hospitalization, and the cross stayed on him.

When Pop was in the ICU at Highland Hospital I would always straighten the cross on his neck and chest, untangling it from the knot of monitor wires and various types of tubes for medication and sustenance, and the connections for his ventilator. Finally one afternoon, just prior to him getting a tracheotomy, the staff had to adjust his intubation tube and the cross was in the way, so they snipped the continuous chain with surgical shears. When my mother and I went back in to visit him, I spotted the cross and chain on the table in his ICU room. We quickly grabbed the cross for safekeeping so it wouldn’t be lost or misplaced in the in the hospital.

The weekend before Pop’s funeral, we went to visit Mom in Hornell to plan the specifics of the service and interment. While there, my mother gave me the cross and chain and said she wanted me to have them. Later that week just before Pop’s funeral, Suzanne and I went to Krikorian & Co. Jewelers in Rochester where three weeks prior we had purchased a ring for our daughter Kiera’s High School graduation. I showed the cross and chain to Harry Krikorian, a very friendly and talented Master Jeweler which I have been a customer of for some time now, and explained the circumstances. Harry quickly swept the cross and chain away and disappeared into the back room. Amazingly, he returned in less than five minutes with the cross in hand gleaming like new, and the chain fully repaired. I asked him how much I owed him, and he just smiled and said, “No charge.” I put the chain and cross over my neck as we left the store and haven’t taken it off since, wearing it silently, but proudly, under my shirt and tie at the funeral. I intend to continue to wear it always.

My mother was asked by Howard Shay the other day if she would be willing to assume the role of Warden of Trinity Church in Canaseraga, the post left vacant by my father’s passing. She said she would think about it for a while, and yesterday morning she gave Howard the answer “Yes” that he was hoping for. My mother will make a fine (and I might add, exceptionally well organized) Warden. My father would certainly approve.

Congratulations to Carol Topping on her new role! I know she will make a huge difference.

Congratulations to Trinity Church on your new Warden! You have snagged a great lady and she will serve you well.

The Topping family would like to thank all of the kind people that have made memorial donations in Dad’s name to his favorite charities. We have been notified that the Hornell Humane Society and Animal Shelter, Lollypop Farm in Rochester, and the Parry Sound Branch of the Ontario SPCA have all received memorial donations in his name. I am sure that many other such notifications will follow, much as the flood of cards and notes that we received from people expressing their condolences and sorrow over Dad’s death. We are grateful for everyone’s generosity and touched by the fact that they chose to honor him in a way that he would highly approve of. Our father was committed to helping these various organizations and would be thrilled by the outpouring of support that people have bestowed on some of his most favored charities. There could be no higher tribute to him than supporting the causes that meant so much to him personally.

Pop had been donating great quantities of food to the Red Cross Food Pantry in Hornell for quite some time now. He had also been giving significant amounts of support to the Hornell Animal Shelter, in the form of large bags of dog food and things like dog toys that he had purchased when the opportunity arose. Mom mentioned that she delivered some of the dog food that Pop had squirreled away at their house to the Animal Shelter in Hornell a few days ago. The staff there told her that they had only made the connection between her and Pop when they saw the car she had driven up in, and that he had stopped in on a regular basis and had quietly dropped off supplies with little fanfare. They said that they didn’t know a lot about him, but now that the memorial contributions were pouring in they had made the connection to just exactly who he was, and were grateful for his dedicated support based on his love of animals. The shelter will be sending Mom a list of all the donors who have made contributions in his name sometime in the near future.

Pop’s obituary appeared in the Parry Sound North Star newspaper today and can be viewed on the North Star website by clicking on the following link Stan Topping Obituary - Parry Sound North Star. The identical obituary will appear in the Parry Sound Beacon Star on Saturday.

Pop’s funeral was the perfect celebration of his life. This is precisely what he would have wanted. His choice of Trinity Church in Canaseraga was ideal, as it was his daily place of worship and thus a fitting and wholly appropriate venue. The church was filled nearly to capacity, but not so much that those in attendance were left without seats. Pop has always championed the underdog, and Trinity, with its congregation advancing in age and declining in size and financial resources, is a prime target for closure by the diocese. Pop’s involvement with Trinity as its Warden was both as much about receiving nourishment from participating in something good and right, as it was about helping a small parish “on the ropes” avoid closure amidst declining attendance and dwindling support from the diocese for Trinity’s role as a rural outpost of the Episcopal Church.

The weather-beaten exterior of the beautiful old church stood in sharp contrast to the vibrant sound of the quartet of bagpipers and the energy of the celebration occurring inside. Howard Shay and his family, one of the longstanding pillars of Trinity for many, many years, was a good friend of my father. Howard and my father stood together in a brotherhood of solidarity; their mission being to protect and sustain Trinity. Thank you Howard for your friendship and caring, and your regular calls during Pop’s illness to inquire about how he and our family were doing. I am confident Howard will continue to be an integral force at Trinity, fed by the strength of his faith, and I would also suspect a loving memory of my father.

The service was absolutely beautiful and the celebrants delivered a magnificent tribute to my father, his life, and his faith. I can attest that the people who knew and loved him were plentiful in attendance and moved by the experience. As the sound of the bagpipes faded, the funeral procession made its way to the cemetery for the Rite of Committal, where the bagpipes resumed and the celebration continued. Below are pictures of the bagpipers at Rural Cemetery in Hornell, courtesy of David Lind.

The celebration concluded with the final interment of Pop’s ashes into a hole in the ground in the Topping family plot. Everybody in the crowd was then encouraged to throw a bit of dirt on the cremains box to ceremonially send Pop off on his journey from the bounds of the physical earth and into the arms of God. Farewell Pop, you are well loved and now at peace, and you will never be forgotten.

The past week has been a very difficult and extremely busy time for our family. For us this was also a time of great mourning. As you are aware there have been no blog postings for a few days, as we all prepared for and participated in my father’s funeral. Each time I went to do a post, I found it hard muster the inspiration and focus that a good blog demands. However, as my Pop taught me, “Life goes on”. And it does. It must. And so will the blog. I have many topics to write on and many things to share. Details about Pop’s funeral and this past weekend. Things about people, occurrences, and conversations. Things about my father, his dreadful illness, and his views on life. Pictures, pictures, pictures! (Pop loved posting pictures on the blog, and I have been remiss as of late in that respect). And ongoing information and observations about the South Channel, the purpose of this blog in the first place.

With copious amount of love and support from family, friends, clergy, and caring and assistance from other folks like Bill Bishop, the funeral director from Bishop and Johnson Funeral Home, and the bagpipers who played at the funeral, our family made it through this tough chapter of life in grand fashion. My Pop would be proud. In fact, my Pop IS proud. However, I know there are still many difficult times ahead of us, as well as many good ones, and I hope to be prepared for whatever the future may hold.